6 responses to “2008: Vegas vs. The Pundits”

The odds of a team winning the national championship don’t necessarily correlate directly to how good that team is. Georgia could be the best team in the country with the worst schedule in the country and end up out of the MNC picture with two losses. The preseason polls rank the teams in order of who they think are the best teams, while the oddsmakers are trying to figure out who is most likely to be left standing in the end.

BenG – There’s truth to that, but it’s not like the pundits haven’t been doing the same thing. Several of them, like Schlabach, have moved Georgia down in their preseason rankings because of the schedule.

Oh yeah, I’ve noticed that. I would have said something about it in my first comment, but I though it was getting a little long-winded.

There doesn’t seem to be a consensus among poll voters whether they should be guessing how things will shake out in the end or ranking teams based on their apparent quality at the moment. I prefer the latter.

But lines are set where people will bet, right? I wonder if it’s not so much “oddsmakers think UGA’s sked is too hard” as much as “bettors think UGA’s sked is too hard because that’s all we’ve been hearing about for months”. Similarly, because you’d get laughed at trying to place a bet on the Buckeyes to win it all, the odds have to be sweeter…